Senioritis
by nathan-p
Summary: Four men in a coffeeshop. They write a novel. It's rather boring. Ostensibly a SpiderMan crossover. Written for National Novel Writing Month, so it's absolutely not the best I've ever written.
1. Dedications

Dedications / Author's Note:

(What you see below was written in the spirit of NaNo -- shameless, shameless wordcount grubbing. To which, I'll abbreviate the dedications: Thanks friends, thanks characters, everyone else go die. Oh, and the canon's not mine.

(By the way, though this is ostensibly a Spider-Man / Yami no Matsuei crossover, it really doesn't show. I'm sorry, okay?)

Forgive me, Father, for I have sinned. Firstly, I wrote a really heinous crossover parody with more OOC than can be measured in the traditional buckets. Secondly, I put creepy twincest in it – and in a fandom that condones an even, in my opinion, _creepier_ pairing or two (ahem ahem, I think you know which I mean but I'll fill you in anyway – anything involving Muraki and either Tsuzuki or Hisoka – also, why does my spellchecker already okay words I've never used in it before, namely those three character names?), even that's pretty damn strange.

Thirdly, I dedicated this heinous twincest crossover parody to a metric fucktonne of people, some of whom will never read their dedications. To which, the dedications, followed by more confession, which is indeed very good for the soul.

Saphira112 – thanks for being Ms. Research Assistant and playing OOC Oriya to my OOC Muraki. On second thought, that metaphor possibly contains more heinous wrongness than the entire heinous twincest crossover parody. Which is saying a lot.

Mrs. Clark, the completely awesome one. Who is possibly the entire reason – nay, the _entire_ reason I embarked on fanfiction that was intended for people to see. To make a rather longish story short, she introduced me to When the Wind Blows, The Lake House, and Invitation to The Game. You may be familiar with the former two, but likely not with the latter one. It's a science fiction story, upon which I based my first (heinously awful) fanfiction. Which was rather epic. To which, the next dedication.

Tirna and the like. I'm terribly sorry that I made you do all those very reprehensible things that only a creepy eleven-year-old can even conceive of. I'm sorry that I dumped an author surrogate on you. But I had to start somewhere, and that was with you. (Reader, I'm actually reworking their story, but er – it's become an original, so you'll never see it unless I decide to finish and publish it. In which case it will be under my real name and you have almost no chance of finding it because I hate my real name and never use it if I can.) I think I'll actually share you with the rest of the world, just for shits and giggles.

Muraki's endless parade of Creepy Fangirls, which I capitalize because I can, and because that really needs emphasis. (There are too many things that just gross me out, but infinitely fewer that give me a headache to think about. Two of which are the actual date of the Russian Revolution and Muraki's fangirls.) You don't know me very well if you have the bravery to plow this, so I'll just mention that you have _fabulous_ taste in music. Maybe I think you're a little creepy, but goddamn, music makes up for it.

Myself, both of me, because goddammit, I'm feeling narcissistic right now. I would explain the "both of me" bit, but it's both highly personal and not as disturbing as it sounds. Really.

Headvoices, whether the regulars or the occasionals, because maybe you're all a bunch of creepy old bastards or maybe you're all a bunch of really nice guys. Either way, you have your own novel now, so shut it.

Tsuzuki's Apple Pie – no seriously. I'm sorry about stealing your manga, but… well, it just doesn't sound good when I say, "Research" or "Headvoices begged me to". Let's go with "Wanted to reread my favorite volumes". Also I just thought I should note it's _your_ fault about this next one.

Hisoka, because one you're cute, two you're fictional, three because people don't think it's creepy when you profess love to a fictional character (welcome to the Internet, we have furries), and four apparently we look alike. (This is TAP's fault, and I will attempt to explain. I have short brown hair, green eyes, I'm skinny, and I blush far too much. I am not aware of – and will flat-out and violently deny – any other similarities, so don't even say what I know you're thinking of saying. And believe me, we _all_ know what you're thinking of saying.)

Nathan / Muraki / Alaric / Doctor Clarke. I'm so sorry, but you all look alike and it's my fault. And to the former two, I'm so sorry that I went for the metafiction angle and made you "twins". The latter two… would you _believe_ I had an entire subplot that was to circle around you guys switching places? (If you're lost, as anyone who's not me is, then just know that those two were from my NaNoWriMay, which I don't recall ever giving a title. Hmm. I'll have to get around to that. Anyway, it was intended as a murder-mystery / western set on another planet, which devolved into utter, utter madness. Like this [direct quote) – "Doctor Kazutaka Muraki ran through the room, because we need a plot device, screaming, "Hey look, I haven't got any pants on!" And he ran into the wall.

Meanwhile, back at the ranch, Doctor Kazutaka Muraki had determined that instead of fortuitously running out the window (which had somehow lost its sill and instead become a floor-to-ceiling window) like everyone else had, he had run into the wall on both the right and left of the window. That's not confusing wording. He ran into both the wall to the left of the window and the wall to the right of the window. At the same time." Shameless wordcount grubbing, see? I went so low as to have characters run out windows. And miss. Oh, and I also gave Tsuzuki a monologue on black, which was bizarre. If you're wondering why he's going by his full name – well, I needed wordcount desperately.)

My pen – which has an interesting story. So, a while ago (September-ish), I got a pen. I soon broke it. It stayed together. This was all after my former favorite pen died, so in sarcastic hopes of keeping this one from dying, I named it Muraki. A while ago, I lost that pen too. Later the same day, I found a pen of the exact same type lying on the floor in one of my classrooms – talk about self-fulfilling prophecy.

Parenthetical asides (which are a heinously good way to waste words while interjecting something masquerading as useful into the conversation) are my savior. Convert today!

Anyone who is actually involved with any of the two copyrighted canons which I played around with below, I apologize. Deeply, because the OOC – well, you can feel it from here. Really, man.

Het fans, I apologize. Well, four _men_ in a coffeeshop, and then they go and ask for a sex scene. What was I to do? Slash was the only option. (And before any of my friends ask… well, yes, Muraki tops. Quit asking. I won't respond.)

Similarly, fans of any of these pairings: Muraki / Tsuzuki (No Tsuzuki, tear. He would have been fun, but hey. I just couldn't find anywhere where he would be a particularly good character to have handy.) , Muraki / Hisoka (Ew get away freak. I will admit to reading some Mur/Tsu sometimes [only the light, happy, totally OOC ones, though, but Mur / His… I just keep scrolling. Faster. Well, I'll admit that I parodied it here, but part of the squick for me comes from the fact that, as I said earlier, I resemble Hisoka somewhat. And this is what I was talking about when I said I knew what you perverts were talking about.) , and Tsuzuki / Hisoka or Hisoka / Tsuzuki, whichever you prefer. Didn't I already say that I didn't leave any room to put Tsuzuki in? (Oh, by the way, though, he _does_ cameo at the very end of my other novel. Go check. Would I lie to you? But still, go check.)

Anna, Shane, Adolph, and Jake. Jake, I'm sorry I never got around to writing your death scene. It was good, I promise it was. Everyone else… well, I wish I could come up with something for you to do this year. At least I got Nathan in – well, he asked to be in, actually. I don't know why, but don't suggest it was because of the sex scene. I hadn't thought of that when I got this idea. Also, that's wrong. It was… well… Wow. There isn't a reason. I guess you're a little bit right.

Nathan. Thank you for putting up with a ridiculously meaning-laden name. At least I let you go by your middle name. (The name on his birth certificate is actually Artaxiad Nathan Prescott. He goes by Nathan and always, when asked for full name, writes "Nathan Artaxiad Prescott". This is one of the reasons he would be nearly impossible to kill via Death Note – even if you spell "Artaxiad" right, you'll have it in the wrong order. Unless you're determined enough to find his birth certificate, in which case you probably have a really good reason to kill him. Although he probably shares some immunity, being that he started off as a Muraki clone – not literally, that is. But he survived not only crucifixion, but also a collapsing building. Beat it, bitches. Also, he lost most of the sight in his right eye because some potassium exploded in it.) And I didn't – well, _barely_ even squicked when you – or was it Muraki – asked for the sex scene. And I didn't just kill you off at the end of that first story you were in – I've had you around for a whole year now. This is very long for my characters, by the way. Most survive maybe six months, then I "box" them and never use them in a story again. Also, thanks for participating in my inept attempt at hot sex scene writing.

Harry. Thank you very much for narrating. You're a dear. (Interestingly, Harry's voice is pretty much mine. I recently described _Senioritis_ – or rather, the process of writing it – as basically writing a diary, adding weird parts, and then finishing by adding weird people. This is basically true, except I don't live in a coffeeshop. I'm God.) Also, by the way… well, I won't say it now. Let's just say that things aren't exactly as you think they are. Yes, he did, but no, they're not. And thanks for not realizing who you really are and always circumlocuting around your actual point. You're kind of like me, and I like that about you. Also, I'd like to slap you for suggesting I'm … attractive. I mean, thanks for the compliment, but… well, you're fictional, I'm not. It would never work. Oh, and I'm jailbait too. And basically it'd be like doing God. Which never, ever works out – it usually ends in a smiting once God's lover leaves the damn toilet seat up again. Oh, I kid, I kid.

The man in black. Damn you, you bastard. I mean, I set myself up for this, but why do you have absolutely no personality? Not being able to cook doesn't count… although apparently your pancakes are fantastic. I'll take that on Harry's word. I'd rather not eat food cooked by a fictional person. Thinking about it makes my head spin.

Muraki. Do I have to say it? You magnificent bastard. (Look, if you're not familiar with the canon, why are you reading this? Let's just say "drove a character to suicide". Although said character did attempt [and seems to have succeeded ! to take Muraki with him. And let's also say, "forgot about bomb on ship". If that's not magnificent bastardry, I don't know what is. Wait, if he'd also threatened to blow up Tokyo… _that_ would be magnificent.) Please thank your fangirls for me. I'm too frightened of them. I mean… _you're_ not too scary. Your fangirls? Oh hell. (This generally works for _every_ awesome villain / magnificent bastard. He's cool. His fangirls? Scary as hell. Mainly because most of them don't just think he's cool. They, um… let's just say they think he's dead sexy. Ew. No. God.) Also, I'm so, so sorry for making you _both_ the Ridiculous Caricature (is not best friends with English – which has, oddly and frighteningly enough, now infected me) and the author insert (heinously forgetful – as in, takes clothes from dryer then comes back downstairs half an hour later to get that same load of clothes out of the dryer).

Meg, who sits next to me in Info. Because without you… er, well thanks for not asking _too_ many weird questions that time I wrote Nathan and Ashley / Muraki getting their sexy on in class. I do wish I'd actually asked you sex questions. However, there are some lines even _I_ won't cross… like that one. Ew. God no. Anyway, thanks for not just up and changing your seat while I wrote hot homo sexings.

And fourthly, I ate the last of the Count Chocula, and _goddamn_ it was good.

If you somehow found any of the above shockingly arousing, I would like to remind you, ladies, that I am single – um, I mean, seek help. I'm not that sexy. (No, seriously. I'm not, honestly. And if you're considering contacting me because I look like Hisoka and you have the hots for him… well, I'm not going to respond. I'll just be blushing in this corner. And silently wishing your death. Your painful, violent death.)

Oh, and I don't own Muraki. Or Harry. Any other pop-culture references are used in good humor, and you're reading entirely too much into them.


	2. Telepathy Is Contagious

"Where the hell are my pants?" someone asks.

"Where the hell are _your_ pants?" he continues. I presume it's a he, because if that's a lady with a very low voice, I think I'll just go back to sleep. Also, I don't think _I_ have pants either, because it's… well… it's really cold.

Where is this, anyway?

I open my eyes and I look around. Oh wow. How thrilling.

A _coffeeshop._

I inventory the stuff around me. Ceiling tiles, about 150 of them, I guess. Multicolored short carpet that reminds me of this Lovecraft story I read once called "The Color out of Space". And my clothes.

Wait, what? My _clothes_? How naked am I?

Quick check reveals the answer – not too naked. I relax, and finally remember to check out _who_'s around me.

One, me – Harry.

Two and three – two guys who look like the spitting image of each other. Twins, I think – but one of them seems to have a broken leg or something, because the other twin – twin two – hands him a set of crutches and helps him get up. Then twin two picks up the clothes lying on the floor and hands one set to twin one, keeping the other for himself.

Four – one guy who's still asleep or knocked out or something. Looks like Death – literally. His clothes are all black, neatly folded at his side, and he is _pale_. His hands are prissily folded on his chest, like a corpse's hands.

Twin two is already dressed, and twin one is buttoning his shirt, leaning against the wall. I'm the only one who's awake and not dressed.

I get dressed as fast as I can, not turning my back to the twins because… well, I don't know, but somehow their gazes seem to have an actual _weight_, like lead weights on my chest. And they just give me the willies.

I've got everything on but my shoes, which reminds me – I look down, and I'm right. No shoes, but I do have a pair of bunny splippers like the ones I had when I was five – fuzzy, white, soft, and exactly my size. Twin two is wearing some kind of sandal, and twin one is in some weird kind of what looks like high-top bunny slippers.

There's a moment of awkward silence where the twins are staring at me and I'm staring back, but then twin two looks away, and I say, "Hey, should I wake him up?"

Jeez, what do I _do_? My voice is weirdly commanding – yet here I am in what looks like a teenage body.

"Probably not," says twin one, and twin two says simultaneously, "What do you think?"

They do some weird twin thing for about a minute, and I'm about to get seriously weirded out when twin one says, "Yes. Wake him up."

I kneel in my fuzzy bunny slippers, and I shake the guy on the floor gently. "Hey, hey, wake up," I say, feeling _really_ awkward, mainly because the twins are staring at me meanwhile. "Would you guys _stop_ that?" I want to say, but then the guy on the floor wakes up.

"Oh, sure," says twin one, and twin two says after a slight pause – and I mean _slight_ as in about two seconds, "Yes, we will." They're really starting to creep me out.

The guy on the floor groans and opens his eyes.

"Now, _wha_ did you wake me up?" he asks in what's probably the most dramatic Southern accent I've ever heard.

"Well, everyone else was up," I shoot back.

"Good point, short stuff," says southern-fried, and I help him to his feet. He gets dressed with me looking away and trying not to look embarrassed, and the twins conferring with each other in that way that has way too quickly become immensely creepy.

"Now," says southern-fried, "what's all this?"

The twins glance at each other, and it's like just one guy who's looking in a mirror, except infinitely more creepy, because then the guy and the reflection say this:

"We – _I_ – think we –_ I_ -- have an answer of some sort," the twins say. "Come, sit down."

This reeks of comic books and dime novels, but what the hell. I take a seat on the floor, and so does southern-fried, followed by twins one and two – although one sits down first, followed by two.

"First, introductions," says twin one. "You go first… short stuff." He grins, and I get the impression that twin two is the source of most or all of their creep factor. Twin one is _friendly_. Twin two is weirdly aloof, and I do mean _weirdly_.

"My name's Harry," I say, and that stupid voice in my head finishes, _And I have a drinking problem_. Don't you have a little voice that does that to you? No, who am I kidding? Everyone does.

"I'm from--" and the sentence just _dangles_ like that. What? Where am I from? Come on, come on, I moved from Maine when I was six and we got a new house in –

"I'm from New York," I say. "You know, like--" and the sentence just drops again. Okay. Superheroes. Superman. The X-Men. The Fantastic Four.

"Like Spider-Man," I say.

"Now you," says twin one, pointing to southern-fried.

Southern-fried hesitates.

Twin one says, "Go on – southern-fried."

Now _that's_ just freaky. You know, I'm a New Yorker, and I used to have a friend from Maine who I lost contact with pretty much after I turned ten. But this one time he and I were talking, and he said his aunt Wilma was up from North Carolina. I said – yeah, ever the wit, me, "Ol' southern-fried?"

And ever since anyone who sounds Southern is immediately just southern-fried. Names don't matter – I've come very close to actually calling people southern-fried aloud, and it's my gift for faces that's saved my skinny ass from embarrassment.

Southern-fried is just quiet, and then says, "Well, I think I like Johnny Cash." He looks down at himself, the perfect dramatic pause, and then says, "So I guess I'm the man in black, then?"

I laugh, because that's exactly what I was expecting, and it's funny. Except the twins are staring at me again, so I stop laughing. What, I like Johnny Cash and suddenly it's a crime?

Twin one looks at me a little weird, but says, "So I guess you see the pattern?"

Southern-fried Johnny Cash fan doesn't do anything, and I'm starting to think that he's creepy too when he looks at me and raises one eyebrow, like he's saying he doesn't get it either. I shake my head now, and my hair falls down over my eyes. I push it back behind my ears, knowing full well that it's just going to fall over my eyes again.

"The pattern," says twin two, and now that he's speaking alone I can hear that he has a really faint foreign accent layered over impeccable English, "is that none of us can remember our pasts until we go--" He glances at twin one. "We can't remember who we were until we start thinking _around_ the problem."

Definitely not a native speaker, I think. Sure, his grammar's perfect and he speaks very clearly, but he just… _pauses_ too much. Then I realize that I shouldn't be noticing this.

That, in short, it's just not _natural_ to notice stuff like that—

WHAM! Someone slaps me across the face, _hard_, and it stings.

"What was that for?" I say, rubbing my face with my hand.

Twin two glances at twin one and says, "You were… _fading_."

"Blurry around the edges," clarifies twin one.

"Like you were going to disappear," says twin two, and somehow I get the impression that this is a momentous speech for him. He's _really_ uncomfortable with English, I think.

"Hey, there's a door over there," I say, and it's like the words just hop out of my mouth without notifying my brain.

"Oh." says twin one, and the twins turn and look at the door.

"There is," says twin two, and I think of how monumentally stupid this dialogue is. If this were a book, I'd throw it across the room and it'd make a nice good bang. But this isn't a book. This is my life.

Twin two looks at me, and once again it's the lead weights, except this time they're frozen, because his gaze is _cold_.

I get up and walk over to the door in my ridiculous bunny slippers. I put my hand on the doorknob and prepare to turn it, thinking that if this door leads out into open space or a minefield or something, I'm going to die in my white bunny slippers that I last saw when I was five. In front of three other guys, one of whom reminds me of—

Who? Who does he remind me of?

Never mind. Time to face the music.

I open the door.

Nothing happens except the door opens and I step through onto clean, sort of plush carpet, which is a really pretty reddish pink.

Coffeeshop.

I look over the interior. Counter with cooking stuff behind it. Desk by the bank of windows, with a typewriter on it. Chairs.

Some voice in my head tells me to listen up, because I need to _see_…

Oh, there it is.

"It's safe," I say, and I can hear someone's footsteps behind me.

There's no_ there_ outside the windows. It's white and black and for a minute I think I see neon green but then it's gone.

"Oh," says twin one, and it scares me that I know his voice already. But I know it's him because a little softer, a little kinder, than twin two's, and besides, even when he only says one word, it's obvious he's a native English speaker.

"_Oh_," he says, and now I can hear the thump-swish of his crutches on the plush carpet. He's right behind me.

"What?" I say, and I turn around while I start to realize that the bank of windows is all black now, providing us with a perfect mirror.

I haven't been looking directly at the twins, because, you realize, they really give me the willies. Now twin one has drawn my attention to the both of them, and I realize that this is really _freaky_.

Of course I got a good look at the two of them right after I woke up – and I realize that that voice I heard at the beginning of this mess was maybe two voices – but I was half-asleep and you know how everything's all blurry when you're half-asleep.

But now – whoa, man.

Their hair – styled identically. Eyes – also identical, except for some reason twin one looks a _little_ different. Their clothes are identical as well. Hell, the only things different about them are twin one's crutches and twin two's mild accent.

"Exactly," says twin one, then glances at me shyly. "I should explain. Have a seat."

I take one of the chairs and sit down, and twin one starts talking at me.

"I know you think we're twins," he says. "We were born eight months apart. So more like brothers." And he shuts up promptly, because the man in black is quietly cooking breakfast, and suddenly everyone is hungry. This incomplete explanation caused a lot of awkwardness in my head.

The man in black seemed to know where all the pots and pans were, and all the stuff too. He pulled flour out of a cabinet clearly labeled "PERISHABLES" which couldn't have been deep enough to conceal the container. And sugar out of the same cabinet. Followed by milk and eggs out of a refrigerator which I didn't remember being there.

He made pancakes, and I wandered around vaguely, eventually using the door to go outside.

Or as "outside" as I could go, which was about five feet onto this weensy patio thing. And then the mist _attacked_ me, and then I was lying on the carpet with what felt like six billion broken ribs.

I wanted to wheeze something like, "Ouch," but seeing as I felt like I was being stabbed –

Oh, what was _this_? Suddenly, everything was better.

"I think he just discovered the security system," says twin one, and twin two laughs.

"Yeah, seems like it," I say.

Twin one's jaw drops and twin two's eyebrows hop up into his hair.

And that's when I realize that telepathy is contagious.


	3. crack crack crack crack

So the man in black made pancakes, and the twins are making tea – that or coffee, because apparently twin two wants tea and is shouting at twin one who thinks they should make coffee. In Japanese. I mean, he's shouting in Japanese, and twin one is shouting back in what sounds like the bastard child of Japanese and Latin.

"Look," I say, "I don't care whether you make tea or coffee. Just stop arguing. You're giving me a headache," and I'm not freaked out at all that I can't remember if it was out loud or in my head.

The man in black looks at me and says quietly, "Please repeat what you just said."

See, he's apparently a telepathic zero, because both twins get the equivalent of a 404 when they try to say something to him telepathically. So I repeat what I just said aloud.

"Look," I repeat myself aloud, "I don't care whether you make tea or coffee. Just stop arguing. You're giving me a headache."

He laughs. "That's funny."

"Really?" I say.

"Yeah, that's really funny," he says, and I'm starting to get the impression that I'm the only normal one there.

"Telepath," says a disembodied voice, and I turn around before I realize it's twin one. "Empath, but that's starting to wear off. I can't tell what you are. He's a zero."

"What?" I say, and I think this time it's aloud, because the man in black stares at me while I talk. "How – _wear off_?"

"Telepathy is infectious," twin two cuts in.

"Depending on how strong a talent is, it gets more and more infectious," he continues, then glances briefly at twin one. "Does that sound right?"

"Yes," continues twin one, seamlessly. "I acquired it from… someone I used to know." Then some very quick thought that is clearly not intended for me; it flashes between them fishily, like the side of a trout.

That's how I realize that telepathy for me is visual, because suddenly I can see the messages flying around us.

The man in black is surrounded by what looks like a solid black force field. I get the feeling that if I actually touched him, I might get the hint of a thought, but he'd punch me in the jaw or nose first.

Twin two has a sulky silver color, like this turquoise ring I have from New Mexico set in silver. Apparently it was my great-grandfather's, and it's pretty tarnished. So tarnished silver leaps around him in a loose corona, like he is wrapped in worms.

Twin one has a really loose corona around him that's a delicate shade of whitey-pink. His thoughts are kinda skinny like minnows, leaping around him joyously. Yet every now and then there's one that's a kind of tarnished silver or blackish mixed in with that happy blushing shade.

"This is _really cool_," I think deliberately, and one of my own thoughts leaps out of my corona. It's a light neonish green, like spring leaves. I look down and suddenly I'm _in my thought_, looking back at myself. I'm a guy-shaped blob of black and green – night vision colors, and there's another thought next to me, and then suddenly I'm back in my Harry-body.

Twin two is glaring daggers at me – and I see little literal _daggers_ of redblack leaping off his corona like living weapons – and he says coldly, "I suggest you stop doing that."

Twin one says something dismissive to him, and _I can hear it_. (_I'm older than you, shut up._ he says.)

Then twin one says, "We can see it too."

The man in black breaks in and asks what's happening.

We all glance at each other, and for a minute there's a ball of silver, whitey-pink, and neon green floating between us. Then it breaks apart and I say, "Well, now I can see thoughts."

"In colors, in the air," adds twin one.

Twin two snaps, "If you won't do it yourself, then let _me_."

And this _spear_ of vicious tarnished silver/red flies toward me with clear intent to kill.

I think: No, don't.

And then suddenly he's pinned up against the glass wall of the coffeeshop, mouth hanging open in surprise. I can read his thought clearly – it's spiking out crazily from him, a surprised robin's egg color. "_No one is supposed to be able to do that!_" Except I think it's in Japanese for some reason.

Twin one laughs and shoots me a little orb of whitey-pink – "I'm eight months older than him, and he acts so _uppity_."

I grin, and then twin two isn't on the wall and I can barely see the coronas.

"Is that better?" says the man in black.

I turn around and he's got my shoulder in a firm, friendly grip.

"What?" I say aloud.

"I was starting to get flashes of it too," he says. "So I figured I'd help you turn it down low."

"Good idea," says twin one.

"I vote for sleep," says twin two, clearly rattled.

"Me too," I say, and I realize that twin one just said something to twin two, because I can see a very faint, very dim flash of minnowy color between them. "Sleep sounds very good," and this time I make sure to say it out loud.

I get voted off the island, so I have to go back into the back room first. I open the door and step through.

Same old room, no dimensional rifts, yada yada yada. Except – well hey, now there are four sleeping bags neatly rolled up and in a little pyramid in the middle. Like a sleepover.

I figure that the Spider-Man patterned one was mine – maybe whatever was giving us this stuff had a sense of humor – and that the black one is obviously the man in black's. The two identical ones would be, obviously, the twins'. Hurr.

"It's safe," I call, and I hear twin one's crutches thump-swishing through the carpet outside, then onto the short carpet in here. "Except for the _spiders_," I add malevolently.

I turn around, grinning, and out of the corner of my eye I see a displeased forest-green thought hopping around twin two. Guess he doesn't like spiders, then.

I turn back around, step forward, and take my sleeping bag off the floor. I shuffle over to the corner and start setting it up.

Behind me, the man in black picks up his sleeping bag and sets it up in the corner across from me. I'm staring meditatively down at Spider-Man, and I'm starting to think he looks familiar, but I brush that thought away.

I take off my bunny slippers and sit down on my sleeping bag, criss-cross applesauce. Or Indian style, if you prefer. You know, like a half-assed lotus position.

The twins are also sitting on their sleeping bags, which are, not to my surprise, set up right next to each other. I can see dim flashes – like airborne minnows – passing between them, and I'm starting to think that this… talent is the weirdest thing I've seen since seventh grade, when some kid brought in a frog with sixteen legs for biology class.

Everyone's looking at each other uncomfortably, and then suddenly I'm dreaming, and then I'm awake again.

"Does anyone else feel like a Sim?" I ask.

Twin one looks at me with a raised eyebrow; twin two is still asleep. I think.

"It's a computer game," I elaborate.

He rolls his eyes, as if he wants to say, "Yeah right."

"See, you control this little person, and when he goes to sleep time speeds up and it's morning in about a minute," I elaborate further, feeling stupider and stupider the more words go into that sentence.

Twin two says, without opening his eyes, "You should have used a better metaphor. Not everyone is obsessed with machines."

And somehow, even though those two sentences don't really sound like proper English, they're very, very threatening, and I say, "You're really unpleasant before you get your caffeine fix, aren't you?" And I think: Oh shit, Harry, your runaway mouth is getting you in trouble yet again. And with the worst possible person, in the worst possible place.

Twin one shoots me a look, and then suddenly those weird ass-thought coronas of yesterday are back, and this really angry, bright redblack minnow shoots out of his left temple and stabs twin two in the nose.

Now, normally I would ask who'd put acid in my coffee, but two things prevented this. One, I hadn't had any coffee. Two, I'd experienced this yesterday. And besides, smartassery tends to get me injured. Oh, well, three things then.

(I'm not joking about getting injured. Smartassery was the direct cause of two of my four broken noses. The other two are for me to know about and you to lie restless thinking about at night.)

But anyway.

I'm about to just give up, get up, and run around the room screaming when twin one grabs twin two (who's faintly protesting all the while) by the wrist and drags him out into the coffeeshop. I feel faintly happy that I don't get the "Hey new guy" routine this time – by the way, the "Hey new guy" routine goes like this. "Hey new guy – you gotta check for [insert danger here." Because the new guy is basically just a redshirt – and by the way, redshirts are from Star Trek – Ensign Disposable. Cannon fodder, you know.

"Stop fighting it," I hear twin one saying. "Coffee time."

Twin two mutters something incoherent, probably involving "But I like _tea_." Of course, he'd be a secret coffee addict.

I hear twin one shout what I _think_ is a Spanish curse word – "_Hijo de puta!_" which I think means "SONUVABITCH!" – followed by, "Harry, get in here and help me find the goddamn coffee. And bring our glasses, too."

I really want to make a Venom joke – he talks in "we"s and "our"s all the time – but I decide to let it slip this time.

I pick up their identical pairs of glasses and head into the coffeeshop. I'm a little surprised to see that the man in black is still asleep – he just doesn't seem like a guy who'd sleep in.

Twin two is slumped over the countertop while twin one is looking at me angrily.

"Thank you," he says impatiently, and takes his glasses from me. I'm starting to wonder how he knows which are his when my mouth decides to jump right past my brain and start talking.

"Don't you guys have names?"

Twin one looks at me weirdly before briefly conferring with twin two. Then he says:

"Well, what do you think?"

Twin two mumbles into the countertop, something like, "What, you _honestly thought_ we were just 'twins one and two', and didn't have actual names?"

"Exactly," says twin one, and then returns to me with, "My name's Nathan. His is – ah – um – er – Ashley."

Twin two snorts into the countertop, which makes me think that's totally not his real name, but I don't mention that because it smells like coffee. I like coffee.


	4. Things Explode

So after twin two – or Ashley, whichever – gets his coffee, he's much more civil. Although I can't really tell, because he's still slumped on the countertop. But he's a lot quieter, which probably doesn't bode well in the long run, but gets me a moment's peace right now.

Twin one – that is, Nathan – is sipping thoughtfully at a cup of what I assume to be tea, although I can't see into it to tell. He's looking past me into the _whatever_ outside the coffeeshop.

So I'm just chilling out, sitting in a comfy chair and thinking about not much when I hear this sort of bang-whap sound. Like:

"kerBOOOM _**WHAP**_!" This weird rolling boom sound followed by the sound of the biggest ever textbook being dropped on a concrete floor. Which is immediately followed by a surprised shout from who I assume is the man in black, but could be a new companion of ours. (I'm totally whistling in the dark there, because everyone was asleep when they showed up – or so I assume. I should ask the twins – er, Ashley and Nathan. But I figure that to move one adult human god only knows how far, you have to move a lot of air, producing a really large sound when they appear and disappear. See, I may have really sucked at high school science, but I paid attention sure enough when it involved loud noises.)

Nathan does a spit-take onto Ashley – if you still don't have their names down, twin one does a spit-take onto twin two – and says, rather quietly, "Oh my _God_!"

Twin two – Ashley – makes a really pissed-off sound and brushes some of the tea out of his hair.

They get up in unison and book it for the back room, as do I after a moment which I use to think that Jesus Christ is my life weird now.

By the time I get to the back room, which is ungodly fast, Ashley – twin two – has swung into what sounds like a prayer or something. Maybe he's cursing, I don't know. Nathan – twin one -- is just staring, mouth open. Both of them are standing in the doorway, Nathan – twin one -- leaning on the doorframe.

"Move it!" I say loudly, because if this is that interesting, I want to see it.

Ashley – twin two – moves soundlessly aside, and I push my way past him to see something that is, even considering all the weirdness I've seen in the past day, really strange and really amazing.

The man in black – or at least I assume it's him – is standing in the middle of the room. Except I don't know where he is and the room doesn't seem to know either, because it's not a man, not even a man dressed in black.

It's this – this _thing_. Like a man-size blob of clay, except it's more like gaseous shadow swirling around in the air. And it's shooting little tentacle-thingies out into the air.

And then suddenly I get this feeling like this – shadow, this – _whatever_ is really, really dangerous, and I need to get rid of it. So I throw out my arms, like Moses parting the Red Sea –

-- and then I'm on the plush carpet with Ashley leaning over me, and I have this massive greenish blob in my vision so I can hardly see, and he's asking where I learned that, who taught me. And I'm saying bullshit, bullshit man, it just _happened_.

Then Nathan pulls Ashley off me and says, "Thanks. Don't _ever_ do that again."

I'm wondering what exactly I did, and then weird thing fifty-seven happens – I see exactly what he means.

Quite literally.

I'm looking back to about a minute ago, except it's from the right side of the doorway. I realize I'm looking through Nathan's eyes, and then what happens next makes a lot of sense because I'm looking at me, even though it's kind of dizzying.

I move to my left, and then I take two steps into the room. I take about two seconds – during which I'm thinking all this stuff about what's in front of me – and then I throw up my arms, and I see that it looks like I'm trying to ward off a truck. You know how people in movies always throw up their arms when they're about to get hit by a truck? In a kind of X shape?

So my arms go up in an X shape, and this _light_, this _white light_ like I got transformed into a human fluorescent lightbulb, comes flooding out of me. Then I'm dragging me out into the coffeeshop, and I can hear southern-fried coughing behind me. Then Ashley jumps me, and suddenly I'm back in the _now_.

I stagger back to my comfy chair and collapse into it.

Being a human lightbulb really takes something out of you, you know?


	5. Bad Haiku

I never exactly fall asleep, but a couple of hours flash by in a blur, and I think blurrily about being a Sim again, and I look up and there's this green diamond above my head. I realize I'm dreaming and then I wake up again.

As I always am after I fall asleep midday, I'm kind of tired once I wake up, and my joints kind of itch. I yawn and try to check my watch – try being the operative word there. Yeah, there is no try.

But if you've ever tried – not that you probably have – it's kind of hard to read a digital watch which is currently running backwards and forwards simultaneously.

I decide against checking the time and just get out of the chair, taking a minute to stretch. My back makes noises like the Madrid castanet band tuning up, but it feels really good.

Nathan is nowhere to be found, nor Ashley, nor even the man in black. I'm surprised, so I go and check the back room.

Yep – they're all present and accounted for. The twins in their matching sleeping bags and the man in black in his creatively black one. The only one missing is me, and my sleeping bag looks kind of sad and lonely in the corner. Poor sleeping bag, with only someone called the Green Goblin for company –

Wait, what?

I look at the sleeping bag again. Still ol' Spider-Man.

So who was this Green Goblin dude? Having no way to find out – no comic book encyclopedia, no Internet access, no anything but three other dudes – I decide to just forget it and find something to eat.

I go over to the cupboard and open it, not exactly hoping to find anything, but finding a fresh package of Twinkies. Did I tell you I _love_ Twinkies?

I eat two Twinkies – no, make that three – and then decide to give myself a rest from the Twinkies and put them back. Then I open the refrigerator and get a Coke from the package I am totally not surprised to see on the shelf. I drink the Coke.

Then I do pretty much nothing for a while.

I sit at the counter in front of the window and stare out into the _whatever_, looking into it and hoping to see that swirl of neon green like a lady's skirt, dancing tantalizingly before my eyes. I don't see it – I just see the swirling, exchanging black and white.

It's kind of like the snow on a television screen – you could stare at it for hours and see anything you like in the swirling pixels.

I'm not thinking of anything in particular, but then the snow clears into a picture, like I'm sitting in front of the world's biggest television screen.

It's the inside of an elevator, and I'm pushing the button to go to the third floor. Business as usual, right – up to and including the fat guy who gets in and the little girl and her mom who almost get cut in half by the elevator door.

I hit the button. Fattie's probably going for adult fiction (before you laugh, that means not kiddie and not teenager, ergo for grownups), while mommy's going for reference, I think.

Wait. Hang on.

There are only two floors.

Then the "screen" goes to snow again and it's just swirling black and white.

Reminds me of this book I read once. Called _Snow Crash_ by this dude Neil Somebody. The hero / protagonist was named – get this – Hiro Protagonist. (Well, actually it was Hiroaki Protagonist, but _honestly._ Maybe Hiroaki is a normal name somewhere, but _Protagonist_? Seriously.)

Anyway, what the book is about is this bitmap – this image on a computer screen – that gets in your system and makes it crash. And then it crashes _you_ – as in, cancels your nervous system, gives your brain the three-finger salute, puts you out for the count. And it's called _Snow Crash_ – because when your computer is so fragged up on so deep a level that it can't even display data on its screen properly, you call that a snow crash. Or at one point you did – it was published in 1992.

So the snowy static outside the window makes me think about that, and then I'm thinking about haiku.

Come on, _I_ know that _you_ know what I'm talking about. Three-line poem, doesn't have to rhyme but has to go like this: First line five syllables, second line seven, last line five. Total of seventeen, and it's usually about nature, but can be about whatever.

Then my brain skips, and I'm thinking music. How in music class (or maybe my short stint trying and failing to play the piano) I learned the chords, and how they're all called different things. You have a five chord, and you have a seven chord.

So I'm thinking, and my thought is like this –

_Chords in a_

_dark time; everyone learns_

_to love who loves._

I mean, it doesn't make sense or anything, but it's a poem. It's _my_ poem.

But maybe it _does_ make sense. I go back and think about it:

_Chords in a_

_dark time; everyone learns_

_to love; who loves?_

Yeah, I like that better now. Lots better, actually. Your English teacher was serious – punctuation can work miracles.

So I wander over to the desk where the typewriter is, and I sit down. I put my hands on home row like the good little boy I was when they taught us how to type, and the keyboard feels like the old keyboard I had as a kid when I was playing – I don't know. SimCity?

Anyway, the keyboard is _familiar_, and I type:

Chords in a

dark time; everyone learns

to love; who loves?

I look at my work. I like it, and then I'm thinking about the guy – or girl – in the elevator. I think she's a girl, and someone in my head fills in:

_Jennifer. Teenager_.

I think and I remember being in high school. I tried to get into the literary magazine – such as it was – a few times with some poetry I'd written. Why not get back in the habit now?

I hit enter twice, space five times, and begin.

Jennifer gets into the elevator, thinking about her homework assignment and wanting to fall asleep. She holds the door for the fat guy and

I sigh, hit backspace until I've gotten rid of this monstrosity – and wonder a bit that this is really more like a computer in an awesome typewriter casing, but whatever --, and I keep going.

Jennifer's shoes are too tight, and she wants to take them off. Her books are too heavy and she wants to get rid of them. She's hungry and she's tired, and she wants to sleep and eat.

But first she has to wait for the fat guy to get into the elevator (she looks at his hands first – nice hands for a fat guy), and then for the mom and her kid. Then she's too angry to hold the door for anyone else and hits the third floor button.

"Third floor, please!" chirps the little girl, from about Jennifer's hip.

Jennifer glares down at her, and the mom interrupts:

"The nice lady already pushed the button, Mel-Mel. Say thank you."

"Mel-Mel" – what an idiotic pet name, thinks Jennifer, who prefers to go by her whole name (and has since second grade when there were five other Jens) – says thank you in a very civil voice for a little kid.

Jennifer – or Jen, whatever – doesn't care. She called ahead to reserve a study room, and now she's going to use it, thank you very much. She has Panda in a bag with her favorite pillow – and that's why her backpack's so huge today, it has Chinese food and her squishy pillow in it – and she's going to sleep, no matter what. Then she'll eat. And then sleep some more.

She stands in the corner by the running board of lights that make the elevator go, and she waits for it to get to the third floor.

The elevator is coming to a creaky, cranky stop when she realizes:

The library has only two floors.

I'm starting to fall asleep, here, and I give up on Jennifer – Jen, Jennifer, what the hell's the difference. I go back to my comfy chair, get back up after about two seconds and get my sleeping bag from the back.

Then I unzip it all the way so it's like a huge blanket, and I wrap it around myself. I sit down in the comfy chair and I curl up.

Two seconds, maximum. I'm gone.


	6. Dark Tower

This time, I get to dream. I've been a good Sim today.

I'm with this girl. I think her name is Sam or something, but it doesn't matter. Because this is one of my wonderful, awesome lucid dreams, and we're flying.

Sam has these really pretty wings that look like her cheeks – pale with tannish freckles. The nice kind of freckles, like nutmeg on eggnog – they add color to her face, not cover it up like all the guys I've known with freckles.

I think I have wings, too, but I don't care – because I'm flying.

I suddenly discovered lucid dreaming in middle school, and ever since it's always been flying or just running around in the best fantasy world ever. Sort of like if you got dumped into a fantasy novel – one of the really horrible ones – and you were the hero. (Don't even ask about sex. I've never used a lucid dream for sex. Real girls are better.)

So I'm chilling out and flying – it's so real, that's why I love lucid dreaming – flying through the chilly wet clouds with Sam, and I'm happier than I've ever been.

I'm not just floating. I can _feel_ the muscles in my back working to keep my sorry ass up here, and I can feel the wind in my hair and in the feathers of my wings. I'm about fourteen or fifteen, which triples the happiness level – me, I figure once you hit twenty-three, it's all downhill. At fourteen, you're fresh out of middle school. You're still a little kid, but suddenly you've got muscles. You're strong and free, but you're not too free.

It's perfect.

And then, the thing I hate about lucid dreams – I always die. That, or the dream ends.

This one ends, and I'm happy, because that means I can come back. Kind of like a video game – if I die, I can only start over. If it just _ends_ I can come back.

So I go from flying and having my best years ahead of me to walking. On this endless plain-thingie, like – like… well, picture the Great Plains and take off all the grass. Now make it really cold and you're halfway there.

The worst part? It's not really cold.

Just a _little_ bit cold. You remember being a kid, right? Those really crap spring mornings where you get up and it's sunny and pretty. Then you get dressed, shorts, T-shirt, sandals, and you're freezing your little ass off. You run back inside and get real pants on, a jacket, but now you feel all betrayed.

It's kind of like the way you feel betrayed when some rat bastard kid comes up to you, like, right after Thanksgiving. You're doing your Christmas list, all that happy kid stuff, and you're writing your letter to Santa.

Well, this kid comes up to you and he leans over your shoulder while you're writing. You're really tempted to just sock it to him, punch him right in the nose, maybe break it – but nope, you're not gonna. Because your mother wouldn't want you to… and because you're a bit of a wimp. Trust me, everyone is.

So he comes up to you, leans over your shoulder in that way everyone hates (trust me, I know you do – everyone does, man), and then he says in that one annoying fat kid voice:

"Santa isn't _real_."

Of course, if you're that one little kid maybe you really _do_ punch him in the nose there. But if you're like most of us, you just get all angry and it builds up in your chest. Then you wind up hauling off and punching all hell out of your backpack, wishing in your little cowardly heart that you weren't so craven and had actually hauled off on the fat kid. That betraying rat bastard – except you can't punch him. You're afraid to.

This kind of cold is like that. You want to act out, kill it, punch it, maim it – but you can't. All you _can_ do is just curse it in your head, streaming out all the profanities you know and wishing you could make some up without sounding like an ass.

So it's really cold, and I'm walking. Then it's warm and I'm lying down. I wonder what the hell's going on.

Then I see – something.

It's kind of like the _whatever_ outside the bank of windows – this staticky, snowy blur of color, all smushed up into one. I catch that flash of neon green, which still reminds me of some girl's miniskirt well after midnight.

Then I come to this – this _epiphany_, you'd have to call it. Because suddenly I see the light.

This _whatever_ isn't just a meaningless staticky blobbish blur of color. It's _something_ – and _something_, in this case, means building. Some kind of building – it's exactly like looking for a picture in the snow on your television. Or more like a Magic Eye – I never did get those.

My epiphany isn't that. The epiphany is that since _this_ blur means something – the blur _I'm_ in, back in my meat body, must mean something too. And if this is a building…

… then _that's_ a building, too.

I realize that I'm probably in the bigger building. White in black – makes sense. Yin and yang, yeah.

Then I wake up and it's "morning", or what passes for it anyway.

I run into the backroom, and I'm not bothering to even try and stop my various freakynesses from doing their freaky thing, so imagine me bursting into the room being trailed by this… blob thingie made of light. And I'm seeing the surprised thoughts echoing around the room too.

"Guys!" I shout, feeling like I've just cured cancer. "Guys!"

Nathan – or Ashley, I can't really tell – asks what.

"I know where we are!" I shout like some crazy street prophet. "I know where we are!"

Then I realize that, being that it came to me in a dream, this will be harder to explain than that one time I woke up in bed with two hippie dudes.

Maybe a little bit easier, but not much.

Nathan glares at me blearily, and I add:

"We're inside – inside --"

And Nathan saves the day, even half-awake.

"Inside the Tower."

We're all really surprised.

He shrugs like 'what can you do', and says, "That's what I saw. In your thoughts."

"Oh – kay," I say. God, telepathy is weird.

"Really." says God.

Then I realize that it's Ashley's voice in my head, not God, and I really want to punch him or something.

"Care to explain?" I say.

"I'll make pancakes," says the man in black.

"I'll do tea," says Ashley, and dashes into the other room. Man, is he ever possessive about his tea.

Evidently, no one wants to talk to me. Then I think about what I've just been talking about, and I realize that I sound like either I've gone completely insane or just had a really gonzo weird dream. Which I had.

I go out into the coffeeshop and I sit down in my comfy chair. It's a really nice chair, have I mentioned? Leather, really soft and squishy with high sides, really wide… whoa, it's more like a loveseat than a chair. Anyway, insanely comfy. I feel better right after I sit down.

The man in black is humming at the stove, and Ashley is fiddling away in one of the cabinets, cursing all the while. I presume he's looking for tea, but I really don't dare ask – he's _oozing_ forest green displeasure with creepy little redblack spikes of anger around the edges. He pulls a samovar out of the cabinet and slams it down on the countertop.

"What's a samovar?" asks the man in black, doing that really cool thing where you flip the pancake by doing something involving the pan and twisting your wrist.

"I – I – what – how?" I babble, then just say, "It's a Russian thing. They make tea in it."

"Oh," he says mildly, watching the pancake brown. "I was just wondering. Thought it was some kind of sword."

I watch him cook the pancake for a little while, then start rummaging around between the side of the comfy leather chair and the comfy leather cushion for my slim little volume of Poe. It's leatherbound – my father gave it to me for my fourteenth birthday. Or, well, I took it from the library. But I've always considered it a gift.

I open it to a page I know very well – the one where "The Raven" begins. I flip past the beginning to the end, the very last stanza of the poem. I skim over the last two lines:

"And my soul from out that shadow that lies floating on the floor

Shall be lifted – nevermore!"

I'm thinking about that when I see this really weird dart of dove-grey dart past my head. It's Nathan.

"Hey bookworm," he says, "get a pancake."

I set down my book and get up. I'm hungry, and Ashley's finally figured out how to work a samovar – which is something I'll probably never need to know, so I don't bother even asking how he did it.

The pancake is fantastic.

The pancake is _fabulous_, actually. I like them slightly underdone so the middle tastes like pancake dough – or batter, whichever you call it. Maybe this is a sign that the man in black is a really bad cook, but it's, like, the perfect pancake.

Ashley finally convinces the samovar to work, and promptly burns himself on it. He shouts what I assume is a curse word, shaking his hand around in pain.

Nathan snickers under his breath, and Ashley _looks_ at him. You know – _the look_. The one that says, "I'm going to kill you, and _it will not be pretty_."

Naturally, Nathan shuts up, fast.

Which makes _me_ snicker, almost spraying that delicious pancake out of my nose like kids spray milk out of their noses. (Supposedly, anyway. This really, really hurts. It feels more like acid than milk when it exits through your nose. I tell you this because I was once dared by… well, this kid to snort milk out my nose. This was in second grade. Ten dollars has never meant so little.)

And Ashley gives _me_ _the look_; the "I'm going to kill you_, and it will not be pretty _or_ painless_ or _quick_."

So I shut up, and then Nathan shoots me a different _look_, like "Heh heh heh."

I nod and grin close-lippedly, so I don't spill pancake on – where the hell am I sitting, anyway? I look down. No surprise, my comfy leather chair.

Did I mention I'm _always_ cold? I see I haven't. Well, I'm always cold. Even in summer, but hey, I live in New York – I've been told that all New Yorkers, native or transplants, eventually acquire weirdo genetic mutations. And to borrow a joke from my old science teacher – "genetic mutation?" Is there any other kind? Memetic mutation, ha ha ha.

Well, anyway, I'm always cold, so I have – well, about a third of my clothes are jackets, so I think that speaks for itself, really. I have fleece jackets for when it's foggy out – since the wind always seems to cut right through them – and waterproof jackets for rainy mornings. Then I have a few old standbys – like this corduroy jacket which always shows up between summer and winter, when fall can't decide whether it should be autumn-y or not and has these wild mood swings between high temperatures and low temperatures.

So yeah, I'm pretty much always cold.

I realize that it's not cold here. I'm totally comfortable. Even though I'm wearing a light tee-shirt and jeans, accompanied by _freaking bunny slippers._ Or as I called them at the ripe old age of five, bunny splippers. (Admit it, you were a total fruitcake as a child, too. A close friend of mine was convinced that girls… er, well, he was _also_ convinced that fruitcake was something like cake with fruit on top. He was sadly disappointed when his grandmother took his request for fruitcake at face value and he received a booze-soaked delicacy for Christmas instead of something cool. Yes, fruitcake must be soaked in booze. No, don't swarm the stores now that I've told you.)

Nathan looks at me and says, "Yeah, I'm always cold, too."

He gestures to himself and then I notice what he's wearing. Let me describe.

He's wearing loose white pants, like pajama pants, and a neat button-up shirt, also white, accompanied by a pearl grey tie. Over this is a loose, flowing white trenchcoat which goes down to his ankles. He's wearing weird high-top bunny slippers – like your normal fuzzy little bunnies, except with high, reinforced tops around his ankles – and squarish glasses.

"Yet I'm usually cold," he continues. "As is – Ashley." I'm _really_ starting to get the feeling that Ashley is _definitely_ not twin two's actual name. Maybe I'll just call him twin two from now on.

Ashley nods solemnly and sips his tea. He's wearing basically the same outfit that Nathan is, except for the shoes. His are sandals. And oh wait, he's not wearing white pajama pants.

I check my own footwear for no very good reason. Still the same bunny splippers. Fuzzy. White. Comfortable.

Fluffy.

But I digress.


	7. The Really Short Chapter

When I wake up, the document is flashing, and the computer is beeping at me. It's kind of like when you're instant messaging someone and then you minimize the window and they _finally_ reply, and the window flashes and sometimes the computer beeps at you if you set it to do that.

I click on it, attuned and well-trained by about a year of ineptly instant messaging. The file opens, as it usually does – I mean, usually, the file opens, and doesn't crash your system.

So the file opens, and I scroll to the bottom. God wrote me back.

Past my long memoir thingy, there's a note from God. To wit:

" . You're a neat person, Harry. I like you. Maybe I _won't_ kill you.

"Ha ha. I'm kidding, Harry. . I like you. Write me back. Sorry. G T G! ."

After this, God added a postscript.

"B T W … get started on that novel soon! Time is ticking, Harry! ."

Oh fuck.

God is yelling at me.

I burst out laughing. Normally, you know, God just goes straight for the "smite" button or lets you off. God does not send you the equivalent of an instant message with kitty smileys and internet slang scattered throughout warning you to straighten up and fly right.

A new line of text appears and I stop laughing.

"I'm not kidding, Harry. Don't make me give you incentives."

Oh, that sounds _bad_.

"No, really. Get going. _Now_."

Shit.

Shit.

Shit.

_Shit_.

I don't have any ideas.

"Yes, you do," she types back.

No, I don't.

"Yes, _you do_." she types.

I sigh.

"Oh, fine," she says. "Just you wait."

Suddenly, Batman. Followed by Spider-Man, Superman, and most of the X-Men.

They leave, and I'm thinking: what the _hell_ was that?

"Not the worst I can do," she types back.

And then _oh my God_.


End file.
